For a moment he did not speak. Then he asked a question:
"And why did you do what you knew would vex me?"
"I did it because I wanted to do it, being sure no honest reason existed against. I set no store by it and never thought of it again. If I'd thought of it, I might have asked Mr. Winter not to mention the matter; but—no, that's not true neither. I certainly should never have dreamed of asking him that."
"Why?"
"Good Lord! Can't you see? What would it have made you look like. I'm proud for you as well as myself. I know you wouldn't have liked me to drink tea with him; but how could I tell him that? He would have wanted to know why you didn't—and then—for that matter I don't know why myself. I only knew in an unconscious sort of way, remembering silly things in the past, that you wouldn't have liked it."
A hundred questions leapt to Jacob's lips; but he did not put them. She was, he thought, guiding the conversation away from the actual event. She had told him what she had arranged with Winter to tell him and no more; and that done, now wanted to leave the subject, saddle him with folly, call him a child, and so come out as the aggrieved party. But this he would not suffer.
"Did you know Winter was going to Plymouth?" he asked.
"I did not. He only decided to go after I left."
"But he knew you were there?"
"Yes; but he was just as surprised as I that we met."